Alyssa Carson, also known by the call sign Blueberry, is a student with the goal of training as an astronaut and being selected for future human spaceflight to Mars. She was inspired at age three by a cartoon and went on to attend U.S. Space Camp in 2008. She has also attended other space camps in Canada and in Turkey. In 2013, she was recognized by NASA as the first to visit all 14 NASA Visitor Centers in the United States and sat on the NASA Mer 10 panel at age 12 discussing future missions to Mars in the 2030s. At 15, she joined Project PoSSUM and took courses with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. She received her applied Astronautics certification at age 17, certifying her to do research missions in suborbital space.
Alyssa enrolled at Florida Institute of Technology in 2019, studying Astrobiology where she works in a research lab and is a member of Gamma Phi Beta. She is also a scuba diver, pilot, skydiver, and aquanaut. You may have seen Alyssa in the media as she appeared in Olay’s 2021 Super Bowl commercial “Face the STEM Gap Space Jar” and has been recently featured in campaigns for Frito-Lay’s “Back to School Blast Off,” Mattel’s Barbie Role Models #YouCanBeAnything series, Elle Magazine’s “Modern Heroines,” Gap’s “I Want to Go To Mars” commercial, or watched one of her TEDx Talks. These campaigns don’t just sell products; each brand contributes to programs that offer scholarships to girls with STEM pursuits. Alyssa uses all her experiences to help encourage the next generation of girls to go into STEM fields or simply pursue whatever their own dreams may be.
Florida Tech - B.S. in Astrobiology
© Florida Institute of Technology.
